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NTSB Sending Investigators To Site Of California Oil Spill; "Pandora Papers" Reveal Billions Hidden By Global Elites; Interview With Rep. Dan Kildee (D-MI) About Infrastructure Bill Negotiations; Experts See Reason For Optimism As New COVID Cases, Hospitalization Drop; Longtime Trump Insider Makes Damning Claims In New Tell All; The Women Who Brought A Grammy Winner To Justice. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired October 03, 2021 - 18:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[18:00:29]

NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Three thousand barrels of oil spilled off Huntington Beach, California.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In the coming days and weeks, we challenge the responsible parties to do everything possible to rectify this environmental catastrophe.

CHEN: An ecological disaster unfolding as dead birds, fish and oil begin washing up.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Democrats turned their focus from intra-party divisions to measures that could make or break the economy.

SEN. DICK DURBIN (D-IL): The Republican leader in the Senate Mitch McConnell is playing games with a loaded gun here.

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Delta cases declining, and now a new pill to treat COVID on the horizon.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, CHIEF MEDICAL ADVISER TO PRESIDENT BIDEN: We certainly are turning the corner on this particular surge.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: I'm Pamela Brown in Washington. You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM on this Sunday. And it's great to have you along with us.

We begin tonight with breaking news. They call it the Pandora Papers, and tonight the box is open. A huge trove of private financial documents revealing how the rich and powerful keep billions of dollars beyond the reach of taxes, creditors' accountability. And of course the rest of us all. More than 11.9 million financial records were obtained by a team of reporters from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the "Washington Post" and hundreds more journalists worldwide.

And their report includes details on the offshore accounts of more than 130 people listed by Forbes as billionaires and more than 330 public officials in more than 90 countries and territories. According to the "Washington Post," deep dive into it all, quote, "The Pandora papers allow for the most comprehensive accounting to date of a parallel financial universe whose corrosive effects can span generations, draining significant sums from government treasuries, worsening wealth disparities, and shielding the riches of those who cheat and steal while impeding authorities and victims in their efforts to find or recover hidden assets.

And one of the journalists reporting on this for the "Post" is their Pulitzer Prize winning investigative foreign correspondent Greg Miller. He joins us now from London. And we want to note off the top here CNN has not done its own analysis of the legalities here and using these financial instruments could be perfectly legal depending on where and how they are used.

But, Greg, thank you so much for coming on the show to walk us through this reporting. Set the table for us. I mean, the number of documents is eye-popping. So help understand what are the Pandora papers and what do they reveal about how this parallel world of offshore accounts work.

GREG MILLER, FOREIGN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT, THE WASHINGTON POST: So you hit on the number, you know, 11.9 million records here, and that helps perhaps your viewers to understand why it took a year to go through these documents and figure out what was there. What they boil down to, though, are e-mails, spreadsheets, contracts, secret ledgers.

These are the private communications in many cases between elite, wealthy individuals and their financial managers and the offshore companies that set them up with shell companies and trusts to help them hide their money. So we're actually looking at documents that take us right inside their plans, their transactions, and where it goes.

BROWN: So I know you've consulted a number of experts. Are these offshore accounts legal that you analyzed?

MILLER: Yes. I mean, it depends. So these companies that offer shell companies and so forth, they reside in jurisdictions where they are abiding by the laws of, say, the British Virgin Islands or Cyprus, or other places around the world, and you're right, to point out that there is not anything necessarily illegal about that.

But it does create a lot of problems. It leads to tax evasion. These offshore systems are often exploited by criminals to hide ill-gotten gains, corrupt politicians, and just -- and as you put it at the top of the show, I mean, just the very, very wealthy moving money and hiding money in ways that the rest of us simply can't or don't tend to do.

[18:05:02]

BROWN: And as you noted in the article, it is interesting to note, in the wake of the Panama papers and the reforms and the scrutiny that came from that that these practices are ongoing by some of the people that you mentioned. And one of those people of course is Russian leader Vladimir Putin. There is this headline in your piece, "Secret Money, Swanky Real Estate and a Monte Carlo Mystery." Explain those findings.

MILLER: So this is a very fascinating story, and I think one of the more interesting stories to come out of this trove of documents, has to do with a woman from St. Petersburg who is alleged to have had a secret relationship with Vladimir Putin in the early 2000s. In fact, to have had a child who was possibly fathered by Vladimir Putin and who had a very humbled background. No money in the family, no particular evidence of any financial means for her, but has become astonishingly wealthy ever since this relationship began.

And what we found in the documents was evidence of a multi-million- dollar apartment that she acquired in Monaco on the Mediterranean just within -- a shell company was set up literally almost exactly a month after her child was born.

And we were able to trace this to a financial firm in Monaco that has done work with other Putin insiders, and so this is a case of how the Russian financial system works, how those who are close to President Putin can accumulate significant wealth, and how they go about hiding it through shell companies to try to ensure that the public is never made aware of it.

BROWN: And what is the Kremlin saying about this reporting?

MILLER: We gave the Kremlin ample notice, more than a week's notice that these stories were coming, sent numerous e-mails seeking comment from the spokesperson for the Kremlin, and we have yet to get a single response or even an acknowledgment.

BROWN: Another prominent figure in your article is a headline about King Abdullah II of Jordan. This is what it says, "While his country struggles, Jordan's King Abdullah secretly splurges." Walk us through what you found there.

MILLER: To me this is one of the most important findings in the trove. King Abdullah is an important ally of the United States. Jordan gets billions of dollars from the United States and other Western governments, and while Jordan has been collecting this money, its ruler, King Abdullah, has secretly been purchasing lavish luxury apartments in the United States.

The documents took us -- allowed us to identify three cliffside compounds in Malibu that he purchased through shell companies, using shell companies to hide these transactions for roughly $70 million over a three-year stretch. We found properties in London, properties in Georgetown, the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C. He has been on a decade-long splurge in spending on lavish real estate at a time when his country and its economy have gone downhill.

There is significant unemployment in Jordan, wages have stagnated there. It's a remarkable story because it gives us direct insight into what the monarch has been doing with his money while the kingdom he rules has struggled. BROWN: And we just want to note the law firm representing King

Abdullah told the "Post" in your article, any implication that there is something improper about Abdullah's ownership of property through companies and offshore jurisdictions is categorically denied.

Greg Miller, thank you so much.

We want to again note CNN has not done its own analysis of the legalities here. CNN is reaching out to the Kremlin and representatives for the king of Jordan for comment.

Also according to the "Washington Post," quote, "Offshore financial firms that responded to the ICIJ's and the Post's request for comment issued statements asserting their compliance with legal mandates but declining to answer questions about their clients."

And now to Southern California where we have just learned the NTSB is sending investigators to the site of a major oil spill in the Pacific Ocean. The leak is about three miles right off the coast of Huntington Beach. Sadly, the impact on wildlife is already visible there. Oil has started to wash ashore along with dead fish and birds.

CNN national correspondent Natasha Chen is live at Huntington Beach.

So, Natasha, what do we know about how the leak started?

CHEN: Yes, Pamela, we don't know a whole lot about how this happened or even exactly what time this happened. Because people started -- people have said that they started smelling things perhaps late Friday.

[18:10:05]

Officials today told us they got their first report of it to them Saturday morning. So this has been going on at least a day or two now with people in the area smelling something not quite right, and people on the beach actually getting tar balls and oil stuck to their skin right now as they are walking along the shoreline, which officials advise people not to do. So it's getting stuck to the bottom of their feet. Very hard to clean off.

Right now there are some divers in place going underwater right now to investigate what might have caused this leak. As you mentioned the NTSB is also sending investigators out. Unfortunately, officials refuse to say how long the cleanup might take, so this could be a prolonged effort here. What we have seen so far is that there are ships that have been dragging a boom along the coastline to try and drag some of that oil and gather it. And there will be a lot of volunteer and nonprofit groups working together for this as well.

Here is the president and CEO of the company responsible, Amplify Energy, Martyn Willsher. He talked at a press conference this afternoon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MARTYN WILLSHER, PRESIDENT AND CEO, AMPLIFY ENERGY: We currently have divers on location at the potential source site. We are investigating the source and potential cause of this incident. Like I said, we will continue to work with unified command to ensure that this recovery effort is concluded as quickly as possible.

Let me just say also, you know, our employees live and work in these communities, and we're all deeply impacted and concerned about the impact on not just the environment, but, you know, the fish and wildlife as well.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

CHEN: And I've talked to local residents here who had to spend a lot of time washing their feet here behind us, and they tell us that they are deeply upset about this. It's not just that they're upset of the environmental impact and seeing the wildlife wash up, but now Orange County Public Health is saying that they will issue an advisory this afternoon, especially cautioning people with respiratory illness, vulnerable populations like the elderly, like children, because some of the products from this spill could evaporate and spread as the wind carries it.

So this could cause not only skin irritation but irritation in the throat, in the note, in the eyes. So people do really need to watch out and stay out of the water. That is the bottom line and officials also caution folks not to touch anything that they see with oil on it, instead to call a special hotline, Pamela.

BROWN: Natasha Chen, thank you.

Up next, are progressive Democrats ready to own it if Biden's signature spending plan goes down in flames? I'm going to ask one of them coming up in the show.

Also ahead for you tonight, Dr. Anthony Fauci's hot take on a game- changing new COVID treatment.

And then the five things a stunning new book reveals about the former first lady.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:17:19]

BROWN: After a frantic week of negotiations on the Hill that aim to unite Democrats on two critical pieces of President Biden's agenda, this week it will be more of the same, likely. The president has invited lawmakers to the Oval Office to keep the talks going.

The key sticking point is the price of his Build Back Better package. Progressive's proposed $3.5 trillion over 10 years. But Senate moderate Joe Manchin, one of two key holdouts, wants to trim $2 trillion from that top line. And this morning the chair of the Progressive Caucus flatly rejected his proposal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: So if we're not looking at numbers, what about 1.5, like what Senator Manchin --

REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-WA): Well, that's not going to happen. So it's going to be somewhere --

BASH: But why is that -- well, why won't it add up to that number?

JAYAPAL: Because that's too small to get our priorities in. So it's going to be somewhere, you know, between $1.5 and $3.5, and I think the White House is working on that right now.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: I'm joined now by Democratic Congressman Dan Kildee of Michigan. He is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

Thanks for coming on, Congressman. The big question in the wake of all of this is, are progressives willing to own it if President Biden's agenda fails because they continue to hold the line here?

REP. DAN KILDEE (D-MI): Well, I don't think that will happen, first of all. So, you know, we obviously are going to take responsibility for everything we're doing, but as Congresswoman Jayapal said, we're in a negotiation. We passed through the committees of the House of Representatives $3.5 trillion. Senator Manchin says $1.5 trillion is the only thing he would guarantee. So we're negotiating between those two positions.

The more important aspect in the dollar amount is what we can accomplish with the money. As long as we can address the climate, if we can support families, especially families with children, if we can deal with the high cost of health care in a meaningful way, the numbers are less of a question than those aspects. And again, as Congresswoman Jayapal said, we want to make sure that this is significant, that we are taking a big step toward an agenda that the president himself laid out.

So the hope is that the negotiations continue. And I will say one more thing. This is what democracy looks like. It's not people storming the Capitol, it's not name calling, it's not trying to stop an election, it's people with different points of view arguing both publicly and privately about those points of view toward a common goal. And so it's not a matter of dysfunction, this is how democracy functions. It's not always pretty but this is what it looks like.

BROWN: And we'll see the end result is after all of this, but you point out it's not just the number, it's the programs that you're going to have to look at and see what to do.

[18:20:01]

So that raises the question, what are you willing to cut? What are you willing to limit? What's on the chopping block as you figure out a compromise?

KILDEE: Well, I don't want to negotiate, you know, in front of the president. You know, he's going to help frame that for us. But I think so long as we make big progress in these three major areas, support for families, health care and, of course, finally getting around to addressing the climate issues that we face as a world, as a society, if we make substantial progress, then the specific pieces, while they're important, are not as critical as the fact that we're making big progress in all of those three major categories.

I'm not going to suggest one or the other to be tossed out except to say there may be a change in terms of the scale, the time frame. We're open to conversation so long as we have negotiating partners that are willing to do the same.

BROWN: Do you have a clear understanding of what Senators Manchin and Sinema are willing to pare down?

KILDEE: Well, you know, Senator Manchin did sort of pencil out a framework with Senator Schumer a few months ago. That's something that we've just seen. I don't know that Senator Sinema has laid forth, you know, her priorities. I'm open to them. We all are. I haven't seen them. And I think that's really the issue. It's one thing to be able to articulate that we don't like the top line. I totally get that. I understand.

But it's easier to say what one is against than what one is for. What we need to get to now are what will these two senators and the other 48 that are required, what are they willing to say yes to, not what are they going to say no to. As soon as we get to that, I think the president is the person who can get us to that point in the conversation. Now we'll be able to move forward.

BROWN: And let's talk about the president. He is clearly getting more involved. He's heading to your state on Tuesday to rally the public around these two sweeping bills. Do you wish he was out there pushing them earlier?

KILDEE: Well, he did make a decision to let the House and the Senate try to work out these differences, and I think he's come in at the right time. There is no hourglass that is going to be smashed in the next, you know, several days. The time frames that we are dealing with are time frames that we ourselves have put forward. Other than keeping the government open and the debt ceiling, we ought to get this right, not get it fast.

You know, I talked to the president a couple of times last week. I'm going to see him this week. I've encouraged them to become more involved. I know lots of other people have, too, it's not just me. It's making a difference. He came and met with us the other day. I know a lot of folks would have preferred that he laid out his deal. But that's not how this is going to unfold. I think he's doing a good job.

He's coming in at the right moment to bring us together, and I think over the next many days, he'll be able to bring this to a close. And you know, that's his role. That's his role. This is his agenda. He's written most of this himself.

BROWN: This morning on FOX, the number three Republican in the Senate said this about the House holding up the bipartisan infrastructure bill which of course already passed the Senate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN BARRASSO (R-WY): I thought Joe Biden went to the Hill on Friday to try to get that bipartisan infrastructure bill passed, and instead he surrendered to the radical wing of his party.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: On Friday we heard a pretty similar attack from a Democrat, Congressman Josh Gottheimer, saying, quote, "We cannot let this on the far left destroy the president's agenda and stop the creation of two million jobs a year." So you have a member of your own party in lockstep with the number three Republican in the Senate with this attack messaging. What is your response?

KILDEE: Well, we're going to pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill. We all support it. It's bipartisan in the Senate, it's not so bipartisan in the House, but all Democrats in the House support it, and we're going to pass it. So -- and I understand Congressman Gottheimer's concern.

I'm a little less willing to accept criticism from Republicans who declared infrastructure week every week for four years and never even produced the piece of legislation. At least in this case we actually have general legislation.

We're moving forward on it. We're trying to get this other piece done so that we can move forward with both aspects of this Build Back Better agenda together. We're a lot closer to success than the miserable failure with four years of Republican presidency declaring parades for infrastructure, and for part of the period of time the Republicans having full control, couldn't produce a single piece of legislation to deal with the infrastructure.

[18:25:03]

So I think we're getting there. We're going to get it right. And it's more important that we get it right than we get it on a Tuesday instead of on a Friday.

BROWN: All right, Congressman Dan Kildee, we'll leave it there. Thanks for your time tonight.

KILDEE: You bet. Thank you.

BROWN: And be sure to stay with us next hour. I will speak to a moderate Democrat, Representative Tom Suozzi, about what his faction of the party is looking for and if he thinks they can all come together.

Well, America is turning the corner it seems on the latest COVID surge. That's according to Dr. Fauci. But he still warns of more surges that could be on the horizon. I'll speak to Dr. Peter Hotez about that up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:30:10]

BROWN: Well, after a summer of loss, the grind of pandemic fatigue that I know you're all feeling it, I know I certainly am, the nation welcomes a spark of good news in the fight against COVID-19. For the first time in three months, Americans are seeing a notable decline in new infections and hospitalizations. And that suggests that new deaths will also begin to decline.

The U.S. is still averaging almost 1900 COVID deaths every day, which is obviously still far too high. Earlier today Dr. Anthony Fauci says the nation appears to be turning the corner but only on this particular surge. He says vaccines remain the long-term answer. But he welcomed the announcement of new antiviral pill that may reduce the risk of hospitalization and death by 50 percent for COVID patients.

Drug makers Merck and Ridgeback will request Emergency Use Authorization from the FDA as soon as possible.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FAUCI: The results are really quite impressive. As you mentioned, it decreases the likelihood of getting hospitalization or dying in people who, early in the course of their infection, take this particular medication. In addition, there is another part of that study that is really impressive.

Among the deaths in the study, there were eight deaths among the placebo group and no deaths among those who took the medication. That's very impressive. So we really look forward to the implementation of this and to its effect on people who are infected.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Let's break this all down and bring in Dr. Peter Hotez, professor and dean of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. He is also the author of "Preventing the Next Pandemic: Vaccine Diplomacy in a Time of Anti-Science."

Dr. Hotez, great to see you as always. Just to get your reaction to kick this off to this news of this new antiviral drug Molnupiravir.

DR. PETER HOTEZ, PROFESSOR AND DEAN OF TROPICAL MEDICINE, BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: Yes, Pam, it does look pretty exciting but I do have to temper it a little bit that it is a relatively small study. It was 775 patients who were randomized either to the placebo, to the control or to getting the pill. And I think for me the most impressive part is what Tony Fauci, Dr. Fauci points out, that there were eight deaths in the control and none in the treated group, but it's still a relatively small study. I think Merck and company will apply for Emergency Use Authorization.

The thing that that gets me equally excited, though, is the fact that it makes sense, unlike Ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine where there's no reason to think that that's going to have any impact. This was specifically developed as an antiviral drug against influenza and specifically to target RNA viruses like the COVID-19 virus, the SARS-2 coronavirus infections.

So when you pull all that information together, it looks pretty promising for individuals who have either breakthrough infection or for some reason didn't get vaccinated. It will have some impact at mitigating the disease. But it's really important to point out this is not a substitute for getting vaccinated.

This is not nearly as effective as getting vaccinated to prevent you from getting ill in the first place. And what I worry about is that people will think they're off the hook now for getting vaccinated, and this could be Ivermectin version 2.0, and we certainly don't want that to happen.

BROWN: No, we certainly don't. Do you agree with Dr. Fauci that we have turned the corner on this particular surge?

HOTEZ: Well, yes, but with an asterisk. And the asterisk is if you remember this time last year, we were also turning the corner on our second wave across the south in the summer, and then we saw the same thing again happen, another surge happen in the south in the summer, but then we saw the worst of all, that terrible fall surge that began around Halloween and then really accelerated into the winter months.

So there are signs of trouble. We're seeing a lot of hospitalizations up in northern Minnesota, Wisconsin, across into North Dakota just like we did last fall. And remember, we still only have 56 percent of the U.S. population fully vaccinated, so there is a lot of warm water for this hurricane to pass over in terms of unvaccinated individuals, and that's what worries me, that we still have to really push hard to get the rest of the country vaccinated.

BROWN: I interviewed Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former FDA commissioner, last weekend, and he said, he projected that by Thanksgiving we would be through the worst of the Delta variant. Do you agree with that, and do you think that once we get through the Delta variant that that's going to be the worst we see, the worst variant we see, and that it's going to get better from there with the assumption that you have a certain amount of people vaccinated in the country and a certain amount of people infected?

[18:35:09]

HOTEZ: Well, you know, nobody would be happier than I would be if Dr. Gottlieb is right, but I'm not as confident. And here's why. You know, I see the glass as half empty that we only have half the country fully vaccinated. There are still a lot of unvaccinated individuals.

I'm watching what's happening in the northern border of the country around Canada, and I am worried about another big, big fall surge. I think there is just too many people unvaccinated in this country to feel at all comfortable. So now is to push --

BROWN: But what about the previous infection helping with this? I mean, because that is still something that is still brought up. I hear it a lot from people. You can't ignore those with previous infections. How do you factor them into the equation?

HOTEZ: Well, here's what I think about that. You know, if you look at people with previous infection, some of them have pretty strong, durable immunity, but large numbers do not. If you look at the early virus neutralizing antibodies among those people infected and recovered, you know, some look really great. Others barely respond at all and are highly susceptible to reinfections.

So I wouldn't count on that. And here's what we do know. That if you are infected and recovered, and then you get vaccinated, then you get a big boost in your virus neutralizing antibodies and you even get what's called epitope broadening where you're actually really resilient against the variants.

So that's the message we have to get out. If you've been infected and recovered, it's sort of a roll of the dice. You don't really know if you're protected against the Delta surge, and getting vaccinated will certainly guarantee that.

BROWN: Just to simplify that even more, how do you compare vaccine immunity to previous infection immunity?

HOTEZ: I think being vaccinated is a much safer bet because we know that people who receive two doses of either the MRNA vaccines now up to three doses will have really high levels of virus neutralizing antibody and you're protected versus if you're infected and recovered, as I say, it's a roll of the dice. Some people seem to have pretty good durable immunity, others don't, and we don't have any bio markers or any blood tests to know where you fall, so you're taking a really high risk of knowing where you stand and if you've been infected and recovered.

And let's face it, most people don't know if they've been infected or not, and nobody really knows for certain.

BROWN: All right, Dr. Peter Hotez, always great to have you on. Thank you for your perspective and analysis on this.

HOTEZ: Thank you.

BROWN: And when we come back, Kate Bennett joins me with the five things revealed about Melania Trump in her former chief of staff's new book. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:42:35]

BROWN: Well, Stephanie Grisham spent years alongside the Trump family, serving briefly as the White House press secretary and then as chief of staff for the former first lady. She resigned from that position in protest after the January 6th riots. Well, now she is ready to talk. Grisham's new memoir details the chaos of President Trump's White House. But perhaps its biggest revelations come from Melania Trump herself whom Grisham stood beside during scandals of infidelity and insurrection.

All of this coming from this book. CNN's Kate Bennett joins me now.

Kate, you covered the Trump family during those four years. You wrote a book about Melania. So what did Stephanie Grisham reveal in this book and did any of it shock you?

KATE BENNETT, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I mean, yes and no, partly because I covered it, and so I think I was more familiar but I think some of the things she reveals are interesting. One of the things she talks about is that Melania Trump is a lot like her husband Donald Trump in that she read all of her press. You know, people think she was sort of didn't care, very aloof, but really she was sort of obsessively going through anything. She had Google alert set up about her.

And this is not a large comm shop like most East Wings. It was really just Grisham and then it was also, you know, Melania herself, and that's really it. Another thing that the book talks about which is interesting is that besides her Secret Service name, which was Muse, she also earned another nickname, Rapunzel, and that was basically because, according to Grisham, she never really left the residence.

Grisham says in the book that she only saw Melania Trump in her East Wing office a handful of times in all the years she was there, and that the Secret Service dubbed her Rapunzel because she just -- you know, whenever she would come down from her tower.

BROWN: Right.

BENNETT: That would be an event. And, you know, I know from covering her, she was not -- you know, she didn't do a lot of travel, she didn't do a lot of events. When she did they were typically brief. And so, you know, I understand that she was by design, by her own choosing, a very private and a very sort of to herself first lady, a little bit apathetic, too, I think towards the end of her tenure.

Another thing that this book reveals is the sort of frosty relationship with Ivanka Trump. Just something I've reported on as well, that the two women who are the most important women in Donald Trump's life did not really get along, and that Melania Trump called her the princess which is interesting.

[18:45:07]

You know, and I think the relationship was tolerable for many years as stepmother-stepdaughter, but when the White House years began, there was a natural born sort of -- I don't want to say jealousy but certainly a role play -- yes, maybe jealousy between the two women. Ivanka Trump liked to be front and center. She liked to insert herself on lots of different topics as we know from, you know, international affairs to stuff going on at home, and Melania Trump wasn't so comfortable with that.

And so there were times Melania Trump had to assert herself and say, not so fast, Ivanka, this is my turf, according to Grisham. And then the other thing that I think Grisham talks about that's interesting in the book is that Melania Trump was angry about the affairs, the alleged fairs that Donald Trump had.

And we remember, of course, because we covered it, ad nauseum, you know, Stormy Daniels, Karen McDougal, and we all wondered behind the scenes what was that like. And apparently it was pretty frosty for Melania Trump who was -- who felt humiliated and Grisham writes that, you know, when Melania Trump turned up at State of the Union with a handsome military aide on her arm.

BROWN: Yes, I did.

BENNETT: I remembered it of course.

BROWN: I do.

BENNETT: That Grisham and another aide had gone shopping in the military aide office for a good-looking, young, uniformed military aide per Melania's instructions. And that she would -- so she knew her visual cues, but she also knew how to sort of stick it to her husband.

The separate motorcades, not wanting to do a walk across the lawn like you remember from the Clinton era after the Lewinsky scandal. And those things Grisham says really emboldened the first lady and made her even more independent from her husband.

BROWN: I remember she would do things that we'd have you on to help us understand, OK, what is she doing? What does this mean? What are these signals she is sending?

All right, well, thanks for bringing us the latest there from this book. Kate Bennett, we appreciate it.

BENNETT: Sure. Thank you.

BROWN: R&B singer R. Kelly spent decades controlling women, according to his accusers, and now the singer is facing the prospect of decades in prison. Details on the dozens of women who brought him down next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:50:37]

BROWN: It is still several months until R&B singer R. Kelly learns if he'll spend the rest of his life in prison. The three-time Grammy winner is now convicted on several sex trafficking and racketeering charges. Federal prosecutors convincing the jury this past week that R. Kelly ran a criminal enterprise that lured women and underage girls to him for sexual purposes. His sentencing is set for a date next spring.

CNN's Sonia Moghe is with me now from New York. Sonia, a fascinating piece from you this weekend on CNN.com and it

focuses on the dozens of women who came forward and helped that jury find R. Kelly guilty. Could prosecutors have done it without them?

SONIA MOGHE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely not. And look, Pam, you know, there were women who came forward with their stories, who testified, there were women who organized protests. The Mute R. Kelly Movement. The women who put together "Surviving R. Kelly," sharing a lot of these accusers' stories. So there is just so many different women involved in bringing this conviction out against R. Kelly including the all-female prosecution team.

So one of the things that I was looking at was just how everyone said without these women who were, you know, victims of abuse coming out none of this would have happened. And it was traumatic for them to get on the witness stand, Pam. You know, to face their abuser. One woman talked about how she had to testify against R. Kelly but that was difficult for her to even recognize that she was abused in the first place.

Her name is Azriel Clary. She testified as Jane. And she had actually been defending R. Kelly right after his arrest. She was in court. She had, you know, sat next to him in interviews before his arrest. It took her months after his arrest to finally realize she was abused. Here's what she told CBS.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AZRIEL CLARY, TESTIFIED AGAINST R. KELLY IN FEDERAL TRIAL: It kind of made me kind of wake up in a sense and realized why am I acting like this, why am I putting myself through all of this misery? Why am I exploiting myself for a man who has me in this position in the first place, you know? And I really had to come to terms, and you know, realize that it wasn't love. You know? Love doesn't hurt. You know?

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

MOGHE: And one reason why it was so hard for some of these women to walk away from Kelly and realize that they were being abused is because prosecutors say he used pages from the "Predator's Handbook." He would cut them off from their families, he would monitor who they spoke to, what they said.

He would even have them write letters making false confessions or videos that were humiliating to hold over them, as sort of a threat to make sure that they remain silent about anything that they had seen or experienced.

BROWN: That is so sadly what you see in so many sex trafficking cases where the predator makes the victim feel like they are the ones that are guilty, they are the ones that put themselves in that position. And it is good to see all of this brought to light in this high- profile case.

Sonia Moghe, thank you very much.

MOGHE: Thanks for having me.

BROWN: In Southern California today thousands of gallons of oil leaking into the ocean. One mayor calls it a potential ecological disaster. A California state assembly member joins us next with more details.

And you're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

[18:55:07]

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BROWN: Potential ecological disaster. Ecological. A dire warning tonight from local leaders after a major oil spill off the California coast.

Also tonight, Dr. Anthony Fauci says America is finally turning the corner on the latest COVID surge. A bit of good news there. We all welcome that.